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Lexar Memory Maker Described As A Junk Company Struggling memory supplier Lexar Media whose parent Company Micron Technology has been labelled as "Junk" is trying to drum up business in Australia with the appointment of Australian Photo Suppliers to push their Kodak branded memory.

Smartphones With Open-Source Platforms Gather Momentum Australian's love affair with the smartphone has grown 40 times over the past five years, according to latest figures from research company Telsyte. This means that nearly three in ten mobile phones sold this year will be smartphones.

Technology Industry Moving Into Recession Interest Rates To Fall The technology market is moving into recession according to research group IDC. However, some vendors will fare better than others depending on what service they provide with consumer electronics set to do better than mainstream IT.

Anti Telstra Campaigner Strikes Again Anti Telstra campaigner Paul Budde, who also parades as a telecommunication analyst, is at it again. This time he claims that The Federal Government should drop its 98 percent fibre-to-the node target for the National Broadband Network and start allowing for wireless broadband for the last 5-10 percent of that target.

IT Tsunami Set To Hit The credit crunch is set to wipe up to US$170 billion in global IT sales that will hurt Intel, Microsoft and other major technology companies, according to a Bloomberg report. A big freeze on both spending and credit will blanket the industry as analysts predict one of the worst ever downturns for IT.

Cybercrime Here To Stay Says Kaspersky Boss Last year, five malwares were detected every two minutes. But times have changed, with Kaspersky reporting that new malware is now produced every two seconds. These malwares are created by cybercriminals in order to profit and cause undue stress to unknowing victims.

Telstra Wants PM To Put Broadband First While Telstra welcomes the Prime Minister's commitment to fast-track much needed infrastructure building in Australia, the company stated that it wants high-speed broadband to be the first cab off the rank.

Koreans Invent USB Powered Toaster Scanner Now here is one for all the budding engineers at Breville and Electrolux. According to TechDigest, one of the nine finalists in this year's DesignLab competition was the USB Scanner Toaster, which can "print" news, weather, and even pictures onto bread.

Councils To Use Detection Technology To Grab Parking Revenue First they hid round corners now traffic wardens are using the latest in detection technology to nick people who overstay in a parking bay. And guess what? Local councils who lost millions in the recent Wall Street melt down are groveling to get their hands on the new money generator sensors

How Green Is Your PC? Not Much Says Greenpeace According to a number of reports, global PC manufacturers have still not figured out how to make a computer without using PVC (polyvinyl chloride) insulation and the far more toxic brominated flame retardants (BFRs), although there are some electronics manufacturers out there producing IT peripherals without having to use those chemicals at all, according to a new Greenpeace study.

GFK Forcasts 9% Growth For Second Half Only day after reporting that consumer electronic sales in the Asia Pacific region had grown 13% in the first half of 2008 leading research group GFK is now claiming that the markets for computer and consumer electronic goods is set to rise by 9% in the second half of the year.

Consumers Still Buying Technology Say GFK The worldwide markets for technical goods are continuing to expand, with consumer spending on audio, video, photographic, IT and telecommunications hardware forecast to rise by 9% to A$793 billion this year. It is also tipped that the Australian CE market will continue to grow despite predicted downturns.

Jobs Sickness Rumours Keeping Apple Down According to reports, the important role of Steve Jobs to Apple was again highlighted this week when another bout of concerns about his health led to a plunge of the company's stock.

Bad Economy Acting As PC Sales Driver Now here is a curly one for all the budding Keynesian economists out there—for according to Gartner, an increase of 16% in PC demand during this current harsh economic climate shows that an economic downturn is a driver and not an inhibitor for PC market growth.

Acer Looking To Bump Up Notebook Production According to a report in digitimes.com, with Acer is set to increase its notebook shipments in the third quarter to better compete with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell, Wistron is expected to benefit the most from the plan.

Belkin Sweeps Top US Design Awards Belkin International has been recognised for its innovative and exciting product designs with two IDEA awards, by cosponsors Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and BusinessWeek, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Texas Instruments Profits Slide As Competition Starts To Bite Texas Instruments, the second largest U.S. semiconductor maker, reported earnings and gave a forecast that missed analysts' estimates amid slowing demand for its mobile phone and analog chips, according to Bloomberg.com.

Optima Suspended On ASX--Announcement Pending Optima ICM according to a press release from the ASX has been suspended from quotation pending release of details regarding the future direction of the company.

On Line On Time Pushes For A Greener Office Not only does On Line On Time save its members money with its wholesale prices, it also offers an ink cartridge recycling program and sells environmental-friendly paper for a greener society.

Optima Frozen On ASX Trading Optima ICM Limited, a leading Australian computer manufacturer and a major supplier of IT and digital home solutions and Microsft Gold Certified Partner today announced that it has been placed in a trading halt on the ASX, pending the announcement regarding the company’s future direction.

Nokia Admits Green Phone Incentives Failing It seems handset makers and carriers aren’t doing enough to encourage mobile phone recycling, whilst at the same time it looks like many people have grown emotional attachments to their old mobiles.

Sharp Invents Solar-Powered LCD TV Sharp it seems, has the answer to at least some of the worlds carbon emission problems with its solar-powered LCD TV.

Altech & Mtron Sign Distributor Pact Mtron and Altech Computers have signed a distributor agreement to distribute Mtron SSD’s throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Australian Company Invents Power Saving Breakthrough Adelaide-based Ember Technologies has developed a globally applicable technology that can selectively turn off idle electrical devices, both in the home and in businesses, which are in idle or standby mode. Standby power represents roughly 10 per cent of the power used in Australian homes.

Apple iPhone Hit With Lawsuit Typhoon Its not all good news for Apple, as its iPhone, iPod touch, and soon to be released iPhone 3G are all set to be star witnesses in a massive lawsuit brought about by a vendor that claims its copyright has been infringed.

Notebook Sales Keep PC Market Growing According to analyst firm iSupply, for the last five years, first-quarter PC shipments have grown by an average of 12 per cent – a trend that seems to be continuing.

Queensland: Beautiful One Day, Digitally Restored The Next Australia’s Information and Communications Technology Research Centre of Excellence (NICTA), has welcomed a $10 million funding infusion from the Queensland State Government for NICTA’s Queensland Research Laboratory.

Bill Gates Says Goodbye At a recent CES event Bill Gates walked on stage and apologised. He said "30 years ago today my father was operating a Kodak projector and I was making my first presentation in Las Vegas unfortunately one of the slides we presented then, was upside down. I would like to correct that mistake today" he said. He then took a slide out of his pocket and placed it into a projector "The right way up". It said ' The name of the new Company will be called Microsoft'.

1 Billion PCs And Growing According to a report by IT analysts Gartner, the number of personal computers in the world has exceeded the 1 billion mark and will double by 2014, with most growth coming from developing markets.

Conroys Korean Trip On The Future Of Internet The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, is off to Korea this week to participate in two key OECD-linked internet and broadband forums.

Ninemsn Boss Jumps Ship - Or Was He Pushed? Hands up who wants to be an executive at PBL? Certainly not Tony Faure, the CEO of ninemsn, the Microsoft and PBL Media joint venture, who resigned from his position today.

Big US Aircraft Maker Kicks Up A Stink Over OZ Distributor SkunkWorks the Perth based distributor of TV and wall mounts has won a major legal battle with one of the world’s biggest aircraft Companies.

Telstra To Offer Fast Free Broadband Notebooks Telstra in a move that could well revolutionise the way notebooks are sold has decided to give away a notebook for free with a fast broadband package which by the end of this year could well be running faster on their Next G network than home BigPond.

Microdia Picks Perths Neltronics In A Flash Flash memory products maker Microdia has chosen Perth-based Neltronics as its sole distributor in Australia and New Zealand.

Global LCD Shipments Down But Still Top 36 Million Units According to LCD researchers WitsView, global large-sized panel shipments in April reached 36.6 million units, dropping slightly by 1.6 per cent, but equivalent to an annual increase of 29.7 per cent, mainly contributed by the IT panel segment.

EXCLUSIVE: Dell Slammed After Winning $158M Contract The NSW Education Department is under siege from angry technology vendors following the appointment of online PC company Dell as the master contractor to a $158 million dollar, 55,000 Connected Classroom tender for intelligent whiteboards, advanced teaching software, projectors and flat panel TVs.

Plaxo Merges With Comcast Plaxo, the online address book that is used by thousands of Australians to store their contact details, has been sold for $180 million to Comcast. Comcast is a US cable TV service and a leading provider of broadband access.

Acronis Triples Its Revenue Acronis, a provider of storage and disaster recovery software, has announced that it has tripled its revenue over the past year.

HP Looking To Buy ED According to a report in Bloomberg.com, Hewlett-Packard (HP), the worlds biggest PC maker, is in talks to buy Electronic Data (ED).

550 Million GPS-Enabled Handsets By 2012 According to ABI Research many mobile phone carriers have started to offer navigation solutions, as well as a range of LBS (Location Based Services) such as friend finder and local search on GPS handsets.

Battery Shortage Hits Asustek Hardest According to overseas reports, the shortage of lithium-ion batteries is continuing to affect laptop computer shipments, although this may ease in the third quarter.

Lenovo Goes On A Shopping Spree Those worried about a war between China and Taiwan may be surprised that it has already begun, as China’s Lenovo Group is now seeking acquisitions to regain its previous world's third-largest personal- computer seller ranking, the same one it lost to Taiwan’s Acer.

Dell Offers $25,000 To SMBs Dell has asked for Australian small businesses to enter the 2008 Small Business Excellence award and is offering $US25, 000 worth of prizes to the national winner and $US50, 000 to the international first place.

Microsoft May Give Yahoo A Miss Steve Ballmer's deadline for the devalued $45 billion deal to take over Yahoo! passed yesterday, our time. But at the time of hitting the CDN "send" button last night, nothing had emerged from either camp. Ballmer was suggesting Microsoft will act this week with some insiders saying that Microsoft may well give the deal a miss.

Toshiba Profits Slump 95% Samsung Rise 37% While Toshiba profits plunge 95% Samsung has reported a 37% increase for the first Qtr of 2008 with this being attributed to increased sales of mobile phones and liquid crystal displays which offset weakness in semiconductor sales according to Associated Press.

Intel Opens Cheap Chip Shop It's crazy-sale time at Intel as he chipmaker moves to get rid of outdated or redundant stock, while at the same time launching another strike at embattled rival AMD. Intel has cut up to 50 percent off selected quad-core processors. At the same time it has introduced new Celeron and Core 2 Duo processor models.

Spam Webpage Warning From Sophos About 92 percent of all email send in the first three months of 2008 was spam, with security software company Sophos finding a new spam-related web page every three seconds.

AMD Slashes And Burns As The Going Gets Tough Chip maker AMD is set to slash their workforce by 10% or about 1,650 jobs, and warned that weaker-than-expected sales hurt results in its recent quarter according to the Wall Street Jounal.

German IT giant faces tough times German IT company Siemens has warned that earnings for the current quarter will be down some $AUD 1.5billion, following a review at its power generation, mobility division and IT Solutions and Services operations.

More Online Apple Mac Attacks Predicted A new survey by security software company Sophos has revealed that computers users predict Apple Macs are likely to be targeted more by cybercriminals in future.